The body of the former mayor of the Mexican border city of Nuevo Laredo, who went missing more than a month ago, has been identified, authorities say.

The announcement Tuesday broke weeks of silence from the state of Tamaulipas, which borders Texas from Laredo to the Gulf of Mexico.

In a news release, state prosecutors said Benjamín Galván Gómez, who left office last year, was kidnapped in Nuevo Laredo, killed and dumped near Monterrey, about 130 miles to the south in a neighboring state.

Galván disappeared the night of Feb. 27 as he left a pharmacy near his house, according to the state news release, along with businessman Miguel Angel Ortiz.

His body wasn't identified until this week, but prosecutors didn't say when the bodies were found. They were identified Monday at a Monterrey hospital, the news release stated.

The state “condemns this act and profoundly laments the deaths of” Galván and Ortiz, the news release says.

Like his recent predecessors, Galván's tenure as mayor was marked by violence.

In June 2012 a bomb exploded in a car left in Galván's parking spot at City Hall, killing one bystander and injuring others.

A month before, cartel members left the decapitated bodies of 14 people in a van in front of City Hall. That was accompanied by a banner that claimed to be from Joaquín “El Chapo” Guzmán, the leader of the Sinaloa Cartel who was arrested earlier this year.

The banner threatened Galván and accused him of working with members of the Zetas drug gang, the Sinaloa crew's Nuevo Laredo-based rivals.

Last year, the city's police chief disappeared and two of his brothers were found dead in a car trunk in a neighboring state.

Violence in the city had since subsided. Galván's disappearance changed that, said a Nuevo Laredo resident, who spoke on condition of anonymity out of fear for his safety, especially because Tamaulipas law enforcement officials refused to discuss it, or even acknowledge the former mayor was missing.

Mexican media reported that Galván's and Ortiz's unidentified bodies were found March 1 in the trunk of a car in a municipality near Monterrey, and had signs of being tortured and shot.

A cartel hit man who told authorities he'd been instructed to abandon the vehicle with the bodies has been arrested, news reports indicate.